The History of Education Part 54

9. That the natural interests, curiosity, and activities of children should be utilized in their education.

10. That the normal activities of children call for expression, and that the best means of utilizing these activities are conversation, writing, drawing, music, and play.

11. That education should no longer be exclusively literary and linguistic, but should be based on sense perception, expression, and reasoning.

12. That such education calls for instruction in the book of nature, with home geography and the investigation of elementary problems in science occupying a prominent place.

13. That the child be taught rather than the subject-matter; life here rather than hereafter; and the development of reason rather than the loading of the memory, were the proper objects of education.

14. That a many-sided education is necessary to reveal child possibilities; to correct the narrowing effect of specialized cla.s.s education; and to prepare one for possible changes in fortune.

A new educational ideal presented. Rousseau's _emile_ presented a new ideal in education. According to his conception it was debasing that man should be educated to behave correctly in an artificial society, to follow blindly the doctrines of a faith, or to be an obedient subject of a king.

Instead he conceived the function of education to be to evolve the natural powers, cultivate the human side, unfold the inborn capacities of every human being, and to develop a reasoning individual, capable of intelligently directing his life under diverse conditions and in any form of society. A book setting forth such ideas naturally was revolutionary [1] in matters of education. It deeply influenced thinkers along these lines during the remaining years of the eighteenth century, and became the inspiring source of nineteenth-century reforms. As Rousseau's _Social Contract_ became the political handbook of the French Revolutionists, so his _emile_ became the inspiration of a new theory as to the education of children.

Coming, as it did, at a time when political and ecclesiastical despotisms were fast breaking down in France, when new forces were striving for expression throughout Europe, and when new theories as to the functions of government were being set forth in the American Colonies and in France, it gave the needed inspiration for the evolution of a new theory of non- religious, universal, and democratic education which would prepare citizens for intelligent partic.i.p.ation in the functions of a democratic State, and for a reorganization of the subject-matter of education itself.

A new theory as to the educational purpose was soon to arise, and the whole nature of the educational process, in the hands of others, was soon to be transformed as a result of the fortunate conjunction of the iconoclastic and impractical discussion of education by Rousseau and the more practical work of English, French, and American political theorists and statesmen. Out of the fusing of these, modern educational theory arose.

II. GERMAN ATTEMPTS TO WORK OUT A NEW THEORY

INFLUENCE OF THE _eMILE_ IN GERMAN LANDS. The _emile_ was widely read, not only in France, but throughout the continent of Europe as well. In German lands its publication coincided with the rising tide of nationalism--the "Period of Enlightenment"--and the book was warmly welcomed by such (then young) men as Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Richter, Fichte, and Kant. It presented a new ideal of education and a new ideal for humanity, and its ideas harmonized well with those of the newly created aristocracy of worth which the young German enthusiasts were busily engaged in proclaiming for their native land. The ideal of the perfected individual, strong in the consciousness of his powers, now found expression in the new "cla.s.sics of individualism" which marked the outburst of the best that German literature has ever produced. As Paulsen [2] well says:

Rousseau exercised an immense influence on his times, and Germany was stirred perhaps even more deeply than France. In France Voltaire continued to be regarded as the great man of his time, whereas, in Germany, his place in the esteem of the younger generation had been taken by the enthusiast of Geneva. Kant, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, all of them were roused by Rousseau to the inmost depths of their natures. He gave utterance to the pa.s.sionate longing of their souls: to do away with the imitation of French courtly culture, by which Nature was suppressed and perverted in every way, to do away with the established political and social order, based on court society and cla.s.s distinctions, which was felt to be lowering to man in his quality as a reasonable being, and to return to Nature, to simple and unsophisticated habits of life, or rather to find a way through Nature to a better civilisation, which would restore the natural values of life to their rightful place and would be compatible with truth and virtue, sincerity and probity of character.

The great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), was so deeply stirred by the _emile_ that the regularity of his daily walks and the clearness of his thinking were disturbed by it. Goethe called the book "the teacher's Gospel." Schiller praised Rousseau as "a new Socrates, who of Christians wished to make men." Herder acclaimed Rousseau as a German, and his "divine work" as his guide. Jean-Paul Richter confessed himself indebted to Rousseau for the best ideas in his _Levana_. Lavater declared himself ready for a Reformation in education along the lines laid down by Rousseau.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 64. BASEDOW (1723-90)]

BASEDOW AND HIS WORK. Perhaps the most important practical influence exerted by the _emile_ in German lands came in the work of Johann Bernard Basedow and his followers. Basedow was a North German who had been educated in the _Gymnasium_ at Hamburg, had studied in the theological faculty at Leipzig, had been a tutor in a n.o.bleman's family, and had been a teacher in a _Ritterakademie_ in Denmark and the _Gymnasium_ at Altona.

Deeply imbued with the new scientific spirit, in thorough revolt against the dominance of the Church in human lives, and incited to new efforts by his reading of the _emile_, Basedow thought out a plan for a reform school which should put many of Rousseau's ideas into practice. In 1768 he issued his _Address to Philanthropists and Men of Property on Schools and Studies and their Influence on the Public Weal_, in which he appealed for funds to enable him to open a school to try out his ideas, and to enable him to prepare a new type of textbooks for the use of schools. He proposed in this appeal to organize a school which should be non-sectarian, and also advocated the creation of a National Council of Education to have charge of all public instruction. These were essentially the ideas of the French political reformers of the time. The appeal was widely scattered, awakened much enthusiasm, and subscriptions to a.s.sist him poured in from many sources. [3]

In 1774 Basedow published two works of more than ordinary importance. The first, a _Book of Method for Fathers and Mothers of Families and of Nations_, was a book for adults, and outlined a plan of education for both boys and girls. The keynotes were "following nature," "impartial religious instruction," children to be dealt with as children, learning through the senses, language instruction by a natural method, and much study of natural objects. The ideas were a combination of those of Bacon, Comenius, and Rousseau. The second book, in four volumes, and containing one hundred copper-plate ill.u.s.trations, was the famous _Elementary Work_ (_Elementarwerk mit Kupfern_) (R. 266), the first ill.u.s.trated school textbook since the _Orbis Pictus_ (1654) of Comenius. This work of Basedow's became, in German lands, the _Orbis Pictus_ of the eighteenth century. By means of its "natural methods" (R. 265) children were to be taught to read, both the vernacular and Latin, more easily and in less time than had been done before, and in addition were to be given a knowledge of morals, commerce, scientific subjects, and social usages by "an incomparable method," founded on experience in teaching children. The book enjoyed a wide circulation among the middle and upper cla.s.ses in German lands.

BASEDOW'S _PHILANTHROPINUM_. In 1774 Prince Leopold, of Dessau, a town in the duchy of Anhalt, in northern Germany, gave Basedow the use of two buildings and a garden, and twelve thousand thalers in money, with which to establish his long-heralded _Philanthropinum_, which was to be an educational inst.i.tution of a new type. Great expectations were aroused, and a widespread interest in the new school awakened. Education according to nature, with a reformed, time-saving, natural method for the teaching of languages, were to be its central ideas. Children were to be treated as children, and not as adults. Powdered hair, gilded coats, swords, rouge, and hoops were to be discarded for short hair, clean faces, sailor jackets, and caps, while the natural plays of children and directed physical training were to be made a feature of the instruction. The languages were to be taught by conversational methods. Each child was to be taught a handicraft--turning, planing, and carpentering were provided-- for both social and educational reasons. Instruction in real things-- science, nature--was to take the place of instruction in words, and the vernacular was to be the language of instruction. The inst.i.tution was to have the atmosphere of religion, but was not to be Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, or Jewish, and was to be free from "theologizing distinctions."

Latin, German, French, mathematics, a knowledge of nature (geography, physics, natural history), music, dancing, drawing, and physical training were the princ.i.p.al subjects of instruction. The children were divided into four cla.s.ses, and the instruction for each, with the textbooks to be used, was outlined (R. 265).

The school opened with Basedow and three a.s.sistants as teachers, and two of Basedow's children and twelve others as pupils. Later the school came to have many boarding pupils, drawn from as far-distant points as Riga and Spain. In 1776 a public examination was held, to which many distinguished men were invited, and the work which Basedow's methods could produce was exhibited. These methods seem to have been successful, judging from the rather full accounts which have been left us. [4] The school represented a new type of educational effort, and was frankly experimental in purpose.

It was an attempt to apply, in practice, the main ideas of Rousseau's _emile_. Basedow tried the plan of education outlined by Rousseau with his own daughter, whom he named emilie.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: FIG. 165 IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)]

As a promising experiment the school awakened widespread interest, and Basedow was supported by such thinkers of the time as Goethe and Kant. The year following the "Examination" Kant, then professor of philosophy at the University of Konigsberg, contributed an article to the _Konigsberg Gazette_ explaining the importance of the experiment Basedow was making.

Still later, in his university lectures _On Pedagogy_, he further stated the importance of such a new experiment, in the following words:

It was imagined that experiments in education were not necessary; and that, whether any thing in it was good or bad, could be judged of by the reason. But this was a great mistake; experience shows very often that results are produced precisely the opposite to those which had been expected. We also see from experiment that one generation cannot work out a complete plan of education. The only experimental school which has made a beginning toward breaking the path was the Dessau inst.i.tution. This praise must be given to it, in spite of the many faults which may be charged against it; faults which belong to all conclusions based upon such undertakings; and which make new experiments always necessary. It was the only school in which the teachers had the liberty to work after their own methods and plans, and where they stood in connection, not only with each other, but with men of learning throughout all Germany.

BASEDOW'S INFLUENCE, AND FOLLOWERS. Basedow, though, was an impractical theorist, boastful and quarrelsome, vulgar and coa.r.s.e, given to drunkenness and intemperate speech, and fond of making claims for his work which the results did not justify. In a few years he had been displaced as director, and in 1793 the _Philanthropinum_ closed its doors. The school, nevertheless, was a very important educational experiment, and Basedow's work for a time exerted a profound influence on German pedagogical thought. He may be said to have raised instruction in the _Realien_ in German lands to a place of distinct importance, and to have given a turn to such instruction which it has ever since retained. [5] The methods of instruction, too, worked out in arithmetic, geography, geometry, natural history, physics, and history were in many ways as revolutionary as those evolved by Pestalozzi later on in Switzerland. In his emphasis on scientific subject-matter Basedow surpa.s.sed Pestalozzi, but Pestalozzi possessed a clearer, intuitive insight into the nature and purpose of the educational process. The work of the two men furnishes an interesting basis for comparison (R. 271), and the work of each gave added importance to that of the other.

From Dessau an interest in pedagogical ideas and experiments spread over Europe, and particularly over German lands. Other inst.i.tutions, modeled after the _Philanthropinum_, were founded in many places, and some of Basedow's followers [6] did as important work along certain lines as did Basedow himself. His followers were numerous, and of all degrees of worth.

They urged acceptance of the new ideas of Rousseau as worked out and promulgated by Basedow; vigorously attacked the old schools, making converts here and there; and in a way helped to prepare northern German lands for the incoming, later, of the better-organized ideas of the German-Swiss reformer Pestalozzi, to whose work we next turn.

III. THE WORK AND INFLUENCE OF PESTALOZZI

THE INSPIRATION OF PESTALOZZI. Among those most deeply influenced by Rousseau's _emile_ was a young German-Swiss by the name of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who was born (1746) and brought up in the ancient city of Zurich. Inspired by Rousseau's writings he spent the early part of his life in trying to render service to the poor, and the latter part in working out for himself a theory and a method of instruction based on the natural development of the child. To Pestalozzi, more than to any one else, we owe the foundations of the modern secular vernacular elementary school, and in consequence his work is of commanding importance in the history of the development of educational practice.

Trying to educate his own child according to Rousseau's plan, he not only discovered its impracticability but also that the only way to improve on it was to study the children themselves. Accordingly he opened a school and home on his farm at Neuhof, in 1774. Here he took in fifty abandoned children, to whom he taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, gave them moral discourses, and trained them in gardening, farming, and cheese- making. It was an attempt to regenerate beggars by means of education, which Pestalozzi firmly believed could be done. At the end of two years he had spent all the money he and his wife possessed, and the school closed in failure--a blessing in disguise--though with Pestalozzi's faith in the power of education unshaken. Of this experiment he wrote: "For years I have lived in the midst of fifty little beggars, sharing in my poverty my bread with them, living like a beggar myself in order to teach beggars to live like men."

Turning next to writing, while continuing to farm, Pestalozzi now tried to express his faith in education in printed form. His _Leonard and Gertrude_ (1781) was a wonderfully beautiful story of Swiss peasant life, and of the genius and sympathy and love of a woman amid degrading surroundings. From a wretched place the village of Bonnal, under Pestalozzi's pen, was transformed by the power of education. [7] The book was a great success from the first, and for it Pestalozzi was made a "citizen" of the French Republic, along with Was.h.i.+ngton, Madison, Kosciusko, Wilberforce, and Tom Paine. He continued to farm and to think, though nearly starving, until 1798, when the opportunity for which he was really fitted came.

PESTALOZZI'S EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENTS. In 1798 "The Helvetic Republic" was proclaimed, an event which divided Pestalozzi's life into two parts. Up to this time he had been interested wholly in the philanthropic aspect of education, believing that the poor could be regenerated through education and labor. From this time on he interested himself in the teaching aspect of the problem, in the working-out and formulation of a teaching method based on the natural development of the child, and in training others to teach. Much to the disgust of the authorities of the new Swiss Government, citizen Pestalozzi applied for service as a schoolteacher. The opportunity to render such service soon came.

That autumn the French troops invaded Switzerland, and, in putting down the stubborn resistance of the three German cantons, shot down a large number of the people. Orphans to the number of 169 were left in the little town of Stanz, and citizen Pestalozzi was given charge of them. For six months he was father, mother, teacher, and nurse. Then, worn out himself, the orphanage was changed into a hospital. A little later he became a schoolmaster in Burgdorf; was dismissed; became a teacher in another school; and finally, in 1800, opened a school himself in an old castle there. He now drew about him other teachers interested in improving instruction, and in consequence could specialize the work. He provided separate teachers for drawing and singing, geography and history, language and arithmetic, and gymnastics. The year following the school was enlarged into a teachers' training-school, the government extending him aid in return for giving Swiss teachers one month of training as teachers in his school. Here he wrote and published _How Gertrude teaches her Children_, which explained his methods and forms his most important pedagogical work (R. 267); a _Guide for teaching Spelling and Reading_; and a _Book for Mothers_, devoted to a description of "object teaching." In 1803, the castle being needed by the government, Pestalozzi moved first to Munchenbuchsee, near Hofwyl, opening his Inst.i.tute temporarily in an old convent there. For a few months, in 1804, he was a.s.sociated with Emanuel von Fellenberg, at Hofwyl (p. 546), but in October, 1804, he moved to Yverdon, where he reestablished the Inst.i.tute, and where the next twenty years of his life were spent and his greatest success achieved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 166. THE SCENE OF PESTALOZZI'S LABORS]

THE CONTRIBUTION OF PESTALOZZI. The great contribution of Pestalozzi lay in that, following the lead of Rousseau, he rejected the religious aim and the teaching of mere words and facts, which had characterized all elementary education up to near the close of the eighteenth century, and tried instead to reduce the educational process to a well-organized routine, based on the natural and orderly development of the instincts, capacities, and powers of the growing child. Taking Rousseau's idea of a return to nature, he tried to apply it to the education of children. This led to his rejection of what he called the "empty chattering of mere words" and "outward show" in the instruction in reading and the catechism, and the introduction in their place of real studies, based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning. "Sense impression" became his watchword.

[8] As he expressed it, he "tried to organize and psychologize the educational process" by harmonizing it with the natural development of the child (R. 267). To this end he carefully studied children, and developed his methods experimentally as a result of his observation. To this end, both at Burgdorf and Yverdon, all results of preceding teachers and writers on education were rejected, for fear that error might creep in.

Read nothing, discover everything, and prove all things, came to be the working guides of himself and his teachers.

The development of man he believed to be organic, and to proceed according to law. It was the work of the teacher to discover these laws of development and to a.s.sist nature in securing "a natural, symmetrical, and harmonious development" of all the "faculties" of the child. Real education must develop the child as a whole--mentally, physically, morally--and called for the training of the head and the hand and the heart. The only proper means for developing the powers of the child was use, and hence education must guide and stimulate self-activity, be based on intuition and exercise, and the sense impressions must be organized and directed. Education, too, if it is to follow the organic development of the child, must observe the proper progress of child development and be graded, so that each step of the process shall grow out of the preceding and grow into the following stage. To accomplish these ends the training must be all-round and harmonious; much liberty must be allowed the child in learning; education must proceed largely by doing instead of by words, the method of learning must be largely a.n.a.lytical; real objects and ideas must precede symbols and words; and, finally, the organization and correlation of what is learned must be looked after by the teacher.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE II. JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI.]

Still more, Pestalozzi possessed a deep and abiding faith, new at the time, in the power of education as a means of regenerating society. He had begun his work by trying to "teach beggars to live like men," and his belief in the potency of education in working this transformation, so touchingly expressed in his _Leonard and Gertrude_, never left him. He believed that each human being could be raised through the influence of education to the level of an intellectually free and morally independent life, and that every human being was ent.i.tled to the right to attain such freedom and independence. The way to this lay through the full use of his developing powers, under the guidance of a teacher, and not through a process of repeating words and learning by heart. Not only the intellectual qualities of perception, judgment, and reasoning need exercise, but the moral powers as well. To provide such exercise and direction was the work of the school.

Pestalozzi also resented the brutal discipline which for ages had characterized all school instruction, believed it by its very nature immoral, and tried to subst.i.tute for this a strict but loving discipline-- a "thinking love," he calls it--and to make the school as nearly as possible like a gentle and refined home. To a Swiss father, who on visiting his school exclaimed, "Why, this is not a school, but a family,"

Pestalozzi answered that such a statement was the greatest praise he could have given him.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THESE IDEAS. The educational consequences of these new ideas were very large. They in time gave aim and purpose to the elementary school of the nineteenth century, transforming it from an instrument of the Church for church ends, to an instrument of society to be used for its own regeneration and the advancement of the welfare of all. [9] The introduction of the study of natural objects in place of words, and much talking about what was seen and studied instead of parrot-like reproductions of the words of a book, revolutionized both the methods and the subject-matter of instruction in the developing elementary school.

Observation and investigation tended to supersede mere memorizing; cla.s.s discussion and thinking to supersede the reciting of the words of the book; thinking about what was being done to supersede routine learning; and cla.s.s instruction to supersede the wasteful individual teaching which had for so long characterized all school work. It meant the reorganization of the work of the vernacular school on a modern basis, with cla.s.s organization and group instruction, and a modern-world purpose (R. 269).

The work of Pestalozzi also meant the introduction of new subject-matter for instruction, the organization of new teaching subjects for the elementary school, and the redirection of the elementary education of children. Observation led to the development of elementary-science study, and the study of home geography; talking about what was observed led to the study of language usage, as distinct from the older study of grammar; and counting and measuring led to the study of number, and hence to a new type of primary arithmetic. The reading of the school also changed both in character and purpose. In other words, in place of an elementary education based on reading, a little writing and spelling, and the catechism, all of a memoriter type and with religious ends in view, a new primary school, essentially secular in character, was created by the work of Pestalozzi.

This new school was based on the study of real objects, learning through sense impressions, the individual expression of ideas, child activity, and the development of the child's powers in an orderly way. In fact, "the development of the faculties" of the child became a by-word with Pestalozzi and his followers.

Pestalozzi's deep abiding faith in the power of education to regenerate society was highly influential in Switzerland, throughout western Europe, and later in America in showing how to deal with orphans, vagrants, and those suffering from physical defects or in need of reformation, by providing for such a combination of intellectual and industrial training.

THE SPREAD AND INFLUENCE OF PESTALOZZI'S WORK. So famous did the work of Pestalozzi become that his schools at Burgdorf and Yverdon came to be "show places," even in a land filled with natural wonders. Observers and students came from America (R. 268) and from all over Europe to see and to teach in his school, and draw inspiration from seeing his work (R. 270) and talking with him. [10] In particular the educators of Prussia were attracted by his work, and, earlier than other nations, saw the far- reaching significance of his discoveries. Herbart visited his school as early as 1799, when but a young man of twenty-three, and wrote a very sympathetic description of his new methods. Froebel spent the years 1808 to 1810 as a teacher at Yverdon, when he was a young man of twenty-six to eight. "It soon became evident to me," wrote Froebel, "that 'Pestalozzi'

was to be the watchword of my life." The philosopher Fichte, whose Addresses (1807-08) on the condition of the German people (page 568), after their humiliating defeat by Napoleon, did much to reveal to Prussia the possibilities of national regeneration by means of education, had taught in Zurich, knew Pestalozzi, and afterward exploited his work and his ideas in Berlin. [11] As early as 1803 an envoy, sent by the Prussian King, [12] reported favorably on Pestalozzi's work, and in 1804 Pestalozzian methods were authorized for the primary schools of Prussia.

In 1808 seventeen teachers were sent to Switzerland, at the expense of the Prussian Government, to spend three years in studying Pestalozzi's ideas and methods. On their return, these and others spread Pestalozzian ideas throughout Prussia. A pastor and teacher from Wurtemberg, Karl August Zeller (1774-1847), came to Burgdorf in 1803 to study. In 1806 he opened a training-school for teachers in Zurich, and there worked out a plan of studies based on the work of Pestalozzi. This was printed and attracted much attention. In 1808 the King of Wurtemberg listened to five lectures on Pestalozzian methods by Zeller, and invited him to a position as school inspector in his State. Before he had done but a few months' work he was called to Prussia, to organize a normal school and begin the introduction of Pestalozzian ideas there. From Prussia the ideas and methods of Pestalozzi gradually spread to the other German States.

Many Swiss teachers were trained by Pestalozzi, and these also helped to extend his work and ideas over Switzerland. Particularly in German Switzerland did his ideas take root and reorganize education. As a result modern systems of education made an early start in these cantons. One of Pestalozzi's earliest and most faithful teachers, Hermann Krusi, became princ.i.p.al of the Swiss normal school at Gais, and trained teachers there in Pestalozzian methods. Zeller's pupils, too, did much to spread his influence among the Swiss. Pestalozzi's ideas were also carried to England, but in no such satisfactory manner as to the German States. Where German lands received both the method and the spirit, the English obtained largely the form. Later Pestalozzian ideas came to the United States, at first largely through English sources, and, after about 1860, resulted in a thoroughgoing reorganization of American elementary education.

After Pestalozzi's inst.i.tution had become celebrated, and visitors and commissions from many countries had visited him and it, and after governments had vied with one another in introducing Pestalozzian methods and reforms, the vogue of the Pestalozzian ideas became very extended.

Many excellent private schools were founded on the Pestalozzian model, while on the other hand self-styled Pestalozzian reformers sprang up on all sides. All this imitation was both natural and helpful; the foolishness and charlatanism in time disappeared, leaving a real advance in the educational conception.

THE MANUAL-LABOR SCHOOL OF FELLENBERG. Of the Swiss a.s.sociates and followers of Pestalozzi one of the most influential was Phillip Emanuel von Fellenberg (1771-1844). The son of a Swiss official of high political and social position, possessed of wealth, having traveled extensively, Fellenberg, having become convinced that correct early education was the only means whereby the State might be elevated and the lot of man made better, resolved (1805) to devote his life and his fortune to the working- out of his ideas. For a short time a.s.sociated with Pestalozzi, he soon withdrew and established, on his own estate, an Inst.i.tution which later (1829) came to comprise the following:

1. A farm of about six hundred acres.